Ladybugs & Stinkbugs

Our Evacuation Saga began on Friday night trying to decide what to do. We had initially decided to put off making a decision until the city called for an evacuation, but the more we thought about that, the more we realized that by the time they did that, traffic would be horrible and tension would be high. With four small children, we did NOT want to go through that again. So we decided to start looking for hotels.

Everyone else had the same idea.

The closest hotel we could find in a major city was Wichita Falls. Of course, we passed plenty on the way here, but we just decided to go with it and once we had made the decision, it was kind of nice not to have to second-guess ourselves every 15 minutes. There were lots of different things we could have done, but from experience, we knew that they all had their downsides.

#1 - STay put. Reason against: If they called for a mandatory evac., we knew we would go. AT that point, it would take 10 hours to get where we wanted to go, instead of 6 or 7.

#2 - Go to family. Reason against: This is nothing against any of our family. PROMISE. But it's HARD with a bunch of little kids to invade someone's home, especially when you don't know how long it will be for. We remembered that from Rita. It's not that the family would mind. It's just really hard emotionally. We were looking for easy. =) Also, the close family we had was already taking in relatives, and everyone else is a good bit away. This is closer.

#3 - Hotel somewhere. This is what we decided. Partially because it feels more like a vacation to the kids, and less like a "we are fleeing for our lives" situation. They are having a blast. Evidently, hotels are exotic buildings filled with all the worlds mysteries and secrets, and if you are just allowed to explore, you will become a master of all of these special secrets. That's from the perspective of a child. How sweet!

So, that's how we made our decision. More later on how that worked out.